PHOENIX — Democrats in the Arizona Legislature are expected to take a final step Wednesday to repeal the state’s long-dormant ban on nearly all abortions, which a court said could be enforced.
Fourteen Democrats in the Senate are hoping to get at least two Republican votes to get final approval of the repeal bill, which narrowly won approval from the Arizona House last week and is expected to be signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
The near-total ban, which predates Arizona’s statehood, only allows abortions to save the patient’s life — and provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. In a ruling last month, the Arizona Supreme Court suggested that doctors could be prosecuted under the 1864 law, which says anyone who assists in an abortion can be sentenced to two to five years in prison.
If the repeal bill is signed, a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become governing abortion law in Arizona. Still, there would likely come a period when almost all abortions would be banned, because the repeal wouldn’t take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, likely in June or July.
Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, who opposes enforcement of the 19th century law, has said the earliest the state can enforce the law is June 27, although she has asked the state’s highest court to block enforcement for a period of three months ending sometime this month. end of July. The anti-abortion group defending the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, claims provincial prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the Supreme Court’s decision becomes final, which has not yet occurred.
Arizona is one of the few battleground states that will decide the next president. Former President Donald Trump, who has warned that the issue could lead to Republican losses, has avoided endorsing a national abortion ban but said he is proud of appointing the Supreme Court justices who allowed states to ban the ban .
The law had been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
However, when Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, then-Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, convinced a state judge that the 1864 ban could be re-enforced. Yet the law has not yet been effectively enforced while the case was moving through the courts. Mayes, who succeeded Brnovich, urged the state Supreme Court not to revive the law.
Planned Parenthood officials vowed to continue offering abortions for the short time they are still legal and said they will strengthen networks that help patients leave the state for places like New Mexico and California to access abortion.
Supporters are collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would allow abortion until a fetus can survive outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks, with exceptions — to save the parent’s life or to protect her physical or mental health.
Republican lawmakers, in turn, are considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.
A leaked planning document outlined approaches being considered by Republicans in the House of Representatives, which include codifying existing abortion regulations and proposing a 14-week ban that would be “disguised as a 15-week law” because abortions are beginning of the fifteenth week would be allowed. and a measure that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have not yet publicly announced such proposed voting measures.